Global warming could completely destroy coffee as we know it

Sam Lewontin has worked as a barista since 2001. He won the 2011 SCAA Northeast Regional Barista Competition and manages the trendy Everyman Espresso in NYC. KRUPS For centuries, coffee has ruled the world as one of its most valuable and heavily-consumed commodities.

Just point your finger to any block of a major city on a map — you'll likely find a coffee shop nearby.

Tech Insider recently spoke with Sam Lewontin, a KRUPS ambassador, champion barista, and expert on all things coffee to get a taste of what the future of coffee looks like.

Here are some of his thoughts, which are edited for length, style, and clarity.

Julia Calderone: Why does coffee grow best in the tropics?

Sam Lewontin: The range of arable land appropriate for coffee cultivation is pretty narrow. We generally only see coffee we think of as delicious or "specialty" produced in the tropics, and above a certain altitude: usually about 1,300 to 1,400 meters above sea level.

At high altitude you have warm days and relatively cool nights. So you're looking for not just the tropics, but high altitude in the tropics. Basically up in the mountains. Anywhere you find both tropical climate and mountainous terrain, you're likely to find good growing land for coffee.

A man in Nicaragua picks coffee berries at the Nogales farm in Jinotega, Nicaragua January 7, 2016.Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters

Calderone: How will climate change affect many of these areas and coffee production in general?

Lewontin: As climate change accelerates, a few things are happening:

One is that everywhere is getting warmer. This means that the range of altitude in places that have been considered to be strong coffee origins is narrowing. As the planet warms, the nights get warmer. So you have to go higher and higher up the mountain to get good coffee.

Another thing is that the warmer and more moist the climate is, the more susceptible plants are to certain kinds of diseases. The most common one is "coffee leaf rust," referred to in Latin America as "roya." As the planet warms up, climatic conditions in a broader and broader range of coffee growing regions become ideal for roya growing on plants. This is very, very bad for coffee plants. It destroys their leaves.

Also the zone of viable land is shifting. Whereas it was just set in the tropics — and this hasn't really taken as strong effect as it likely will as the planet continues to warm up — now that tropical band is going to grow, more or less. The middle of it is probably going to be too warm, and then as you get out to the edges, those edges are going to start moving. We're going to start seeing warmer weather and an appropriate climate for coffee further out from the equator.

Coffee cherries affected by the tree-killing fungus, roya, at a plantation in El Crucero, Nicaragua.Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters

Calderone: Why are those tropical warm days and cool nights so essential for delicious coffee?

Lewontin: As the plant grows, it takes in things like sunlight, air, nutrients and water from the soil. It turns all of that into a whole bunch of different chemicals it needs to grow and produce fruit and seeds so that it can reproduce. Those chemicals are things that taste good: organic acids, aromatic compounds, acids, and sugars.

When you have warm days and cold nights, that temperature differential shocks the plant into stasis, then it deposits all of the chemicals into its seeds [the "beans"]. This happens over and over again across long cycles of warm days and cold nights; it continues layering these flavors into its seeds.

When the fruit [the bean] is ripe and you pick it off and roast it, all of those precursor compounds that were layered in night after night are then developed into something delicious.

Calderone: As the planet warms, which regions specifically are likely to start producing coffee in the future?

Lewontin: It's hard to say which regions specifically will begin production. In general, if you look at where coffee is currently being produced — regions like Central and South America, East Africa, the Pacific (Southeast Asia and Indonesia), a couple of the Pacific Islands (notably Papua New Guinea), and India — and if you look at where the tropic band will stretch north and south, in those specific regions you'll start to see some new areas coming in line for serious coffee cultivation.

Calderone: What will happen to regions that currently produce coffee, but not necessarily good coffee?

Lewontin: We're starting to see some outfits investing very strongly and heavily in better coffee production in countries where there is a history of coffee production, but where there hasn't necessarily been awesome coffee.

Vietnam, for example, has long been a large-scale producer of "robusta" coffee, which is pretty much exclusively a commodity and isn't particularly tasty. We're starting to see a lot more investment in coffees coming out of Vietnam and India, although those are both fairly new things.

There are some countries in East Africa that have historically been coffee-producing, but the people haven't really thought of it as "specialty." We're starting to see really beautiful coffees out of Uganda. There is an increased attention to detail. There's some really great work being done in Mexico. I can't say the timeline, that depends on how and when something becomes available and what the rates of all of these climate change variables are.

Calderone: How much of these changes are specifically motivated by climate change?

Lewontin: Recent interest in specialty coffee is definitely motivated by interested buyers, coffee importers taking an interest in and generating money in the region, and those interested buyers connecting local producers who are interested in doing the work to produce quality coffee. Some of that is definitely motivated by climate change, but it's often less like, "Okay, it's getting warmer and this thing is happening, so I'm going to go to a different country outside of the warming range." It's more a combination of different environmental and economic circumstances, which extend at least partially from the reality of climate change.

A man of the Nicaraguan ethnic tribe Sumos collects coffee berries at the Nogales farm in JinotegaOswaldo Rivas/Reuters

Calderone: How are farmers producing coffee that is resistant to disease?

Lewontin: More and more places are starting to adapt varieties of coffee that are not only disease-resistant, but also taste pretty good. This is a huge, ongoing effort and is struggling to produce some results in places like Colombia, notably, but it is still going. They're especially trying to understand the genetic precursors to flavor and the genetic precursors to disease resistances.

As with any agricultural product, there is a sensitivity to disease. They're trying to figure out how to make the plants heartier and easier to grow.

Calderone: I've seen reports saying that coffee is going to go away forever. Is that true?

Lewontin: That remains to be seen. We're certainly in a very tricky spot. I remain optimistic that the kind of work being done in coffee-producing countries all over the world — to create strains that are disease resistant and also taste good; and also to perfect agronomic methods to make coffee farming and production more sustainable — will see us through and that we will still in 20 years have coffee.

That does, however, remain to be seen. A lot depends on the work that is done throughout the industry, probably in the next 10 years.

Reuters

Calderone: What can the consumer do to help?

Lewontin: Talk to your barista, know who roasted your coffee, know where your coffee came from. In general, buy better coffee and don't be afraid to pay for coffee that's delicious enough to be worth a little more money. Buy coffee from people who aren't afraid to tell you where it came from, and buy coffee from people who aren't afraid to tell you how it got there.